The first beta version of the software was released on Sept. 2, 2008, for personal computers (PCs) running various versions of Microsoft Corporation’s Windows OS (operating system). The development of Chrome was kept a well-guarded secret until a Web-based “comic book” describing the browser was released just hours before links appeared on Google’s Web site to download the program. In its public statements the company declared that it did not expect to supplant the major browsers, such as Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Firefox (the latter an open-source browser that Google supports with technical and monetary help). Instead, Google stated that its goal was to advance the usefulness of the Internet by including features that would work better with newer Web-based technologies, such as the company’s Google Apps (e.g., calendar, word processor, spreadsheet), that operate within a browser. This concept is often called “cloud computing,” as the user relies on programs operating “out there,” somewhere “in the cloud” (on the Internet).

Part of Chrome’s speed improvement over existing browsers is its use of a new JavaScript engine (V8). Chrome uses code from Apple Inc.’s WebKit, the open-source rendering engine used in Apple’s Safari Web browser. Chrome is the first browser to feature isolated, or protected, windows (or tabs) for each Web page or application running in it. While this means that each new tab that is opened requires as much dedicated computer memory as the first tab, it also means that if any computer code causes one of these tabs to crash, it will not bring down the entire browser. Closing a tab fully releases its allocated memory, thus solving a persistent problem of older browsers, which frequently have to be restarted in order to release the increasing amounts of memory that are requisitioned over time.

On July 7, 2009, Google announced plans to develop an open-source operating system, known as Chrome OS. The first devices to use Chrome OS were released in 2011 and were netbooks called Chromebooks. Chrome OS, which runs on top of a Linux kernel, requires fewer system resources than most operating systems because it uses cloud computing, in which the only software run on a Chrome OS device is Chrome and all other software applications are accessed through the Internet inside the Chrome browser.

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